Annotate, Collaborate, and Learn with Marginal Syllabus and Educator Innovator

April 06, 2017

By Liana Gamber-Thompson

Join us this month as we launch our partnership with Marginal Syllabus with a Hypothesis annotathon of By Any Media Necessary and a kick-off webinar with the book’s authors.

Educator Innovator is very excited to announce a new partnership with Marginal Syllabus. Starting in April, Educator Innovator will host a dynamic opportunity for open learning via author partnerships, annotathons (more on these below!), and webinars—all in conjunction with Marginal Syllabus, a multi-stakeholder collaboration between Hypothesis, a non-profit organization building an open platform for discussion on the web, Aurora Public Schools in Aurora, CO, and Researchers and teacher educators from the University of Colorado Denver School of Education and Human Development in Denver, CO. The founders of Marginal Syllabus aim to advance educator professional development about education in/equity through the use of participatory learning technologies. You can learn more at the Marginal Syllabus website.

By partnering with Marginal Syllabus, Educator Innovator seeks to facilitate open learning for educators in all kinds of spaces (in schools, libraries, and afterschool programs to name a few). We are enthusiastic about the potential for collaborative learning, exploration, and dialogue brought about by “social reading” and the online tools like Hypothesis that make it possible. We already know there is tremendous power in reading, writing and discussing together, and this collaboration makes it even easier, extending the conversation across space and time.

By now, we hope you’re asking yourself how you can benefit from this partnership and participate yourself. Join us for the following events in April:

This month, we’re continuing a strand of Educator Innovator programming related to the experiences and challenges of American-Muslim youth today with Sangita Shresthova’s chapter of By Any Media Necessary titled, “Storytelling and Surveillance: The Precarious Public of American Muslim Youth.” In this chapter, Shresthova describes what everyday life, both online and off, is like for young American-Muslims in the post-9/11 era and explores how this population navigates activism, online communication, and increasing surveillance of their communities. When applying the lens of equity to this chapter (which Marginal Syllabus takes up as a guiding principle), we imagine educators will be able to see clearly why exploring these issues with students from all backgrounds remains critical.

We’ve outlined 3 easy steps for you to get involved, with more details about these events and instructions for how to jump in:

Step 1: Learn More about Marginal Syllabus and Annotathons

The Marginal Syllabus is an informal educator professional learning effort that convenes monthly annotation conversations, or “annotathons,” about issues of educational equity. Marginal Syllabus organizers partner with authors and education experts whose scholarly perspectives may be considered marginal to dominant conventions of schooling and education. The openly accessible texts of partner authors – whether book chapters or blog posts – are selected as online forums for conversation among K-12 and postsecondary educators via the open educational practices of web annotation (conversations that occur in a text’s margins). Both the individual texts where monthly dialogue occurs – and the syllabus as a cohesive, growing document – represent a dynamic conversation that seeks to open texts as contexts for educators’ interest-driven learning. For even more context, you can read a recent blog post by Marginal Syllabus co-founder, Remi Kalir, about upcoming events and the Educator Innovator partnership here.

You can also use this platform more regularly to annotate this and other online content. If you are new to either open web annotation or the platform Hypothesis, follow these steps to set it up on your browser:

Follow instructions in the newly opened tab – create a username, enter your email address and a password, and that’s it!

Also, at hypothes.is/welcome note how to toggle the annotation menu via a button in Chrome’s location bar, as well as the different types of annotation you can add to a text – including page notes, highlights, comments, and replies to annotations.

You can also download the Hypothesis extension. Use the tool to comment on the text and converse with others who are also annotating it. Your annotations will be visible to anyone on the web who also has Hypothesis engaged.

Connect

While you are annotating, you can also keep a lookout for others who will be annotating with Hypothesis, and engage with them throughout the week. You’ll find: